


Fox Territory

by raemanzu, spica_tea



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, Brothers, Canon Compliant, Coruscant (Star Wars), Crime Fighting, Friendship, Gen, In Character, Investigations, Mystery, No Romance, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raemanzu/pseuds/raemanzu, https://archiveofourown.org/users/spica_tea/pseuds/spica_tea
Summary: A collection of one-shots focused on Fox and the Coruscant Guard. Set in the same continuity as Live to Fight Another Day but easily stands alone. Contains no shipping.
Comments: 25
Kudos: 90
Collections: LTFADverse





	Fox Territory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Fox, Radar, Dogma  
> Rating: PG  
> Genre: Gen  
> Warnings: None  
> Summary: Fox and one of his captains notice a discrepancy in the reporting of the events on Umbara.

Fox found Radar right where he’d expected, lying on his belly in the sniper’s perch at the shooting range. 

It was loud in here, the cavernous space like a hangar, echoing each ping of blaster fire, target spheres crashing to the ground in shards to later be swept away by droids. Fox stopped a few meters away from the captain, watching him.

The slug-thrower was a unique weapon, at least by GAR standards. It wasn’t any quieter than blaster fire, but as Radar squeezed the trigger, the powerful kickback and a wisp of smoke were the only visible indications a shot had been fired until one of the distant targets shattered. Less visual warning, less to accurately block or evade. Much more difficult to pinpoint the source. At least, that’s what Radar always said when people asked why he toted around such a crude rifle.

“Radar,” he called over comm, not wanting to have to shout.

“Radar here,” came the reply. 

“Turn around.” 

The captain hopped to his feet with surprising grace, considering the bulk of his kama and the large weapon in his hands. 

“What’s up?” Radar asked once he was close enough to be heard without the comm.

“I want your opinion on something.” Fox took his helmet off and held out a datapad. Radar quickly returned the rifle to its holster on his back so he could take it.

Radar took his helmet off too and tucked it under one arm. His short hair, usually wavy and forward-swept, was looking a bit flat, and the long geometric tattoos along his jaw warped in a blink-and-you-miss-it grin of greeting before he turned his full attention on what Fox had handed him. 

After a minute of quick reading, Radar grunted—barely audible above the constant ping-ping-ping of blaster fire—and raised his eyebrows. “Well, I can't say I feel any grief hearing that general’s not wasting any more oxygen. Look at those casualty numbers, though....” Radar frowned at the screen and glanced up at Fox. “What part did you want my opinion about? Cody?”

“You finished reading it already?”

“No, getting there.” 

“How far are you?” Fox shifted to try and read over his shoulder. “It’s not that long. You can read a whole textbook on ancient Whiphid theocracy in less than a day.”

“Yeah, as long as I’m not distracted! Give me a second, will you?” Radar half-shouted over the noise. He bent his attention back to the report, reading aloud but quietly enough that Fox only caught every few words between shots. “... falsified...forces impersonating… ally… jammed comm... intelligence...Umbaran army were… what? Wearing clone armor?” Radar’s forehead creased and he pulled back in confusion. “Impersonating what ally? And was it by voice only, or holoprojector? Wouldn’t Cody or Rex be smart enough to confirm identity through a clearance code? This is so vague.”

Fox waited for Radar to continue reading, pleased that he’d captured the captain’s full attention now. 

“Okay,” Radar thought aloud, even as his eyes continued skipping over the words, “so an assassin took out Krell back at the airbase… so this was a ploy to distract the army, but no general would have left the base unprotected anyway… just made security thin enough for them to slip through I guess… and if they’re wearing clone armor… but still, something’s off about this….”

“Done?” 

“Almost.” Radar was looking more and more perplexed as he went. Fox saw him page back up toward the beginning, reread a bit. Finally, he blew out a breath and tapped the edge of the datapad against his chin. “Hmm. Okay so according to this, the Umbarans sent a message to the Five-Oh-First and Two-Twelfth forces, telling each of them to go to the same coordinates and expect the enemy to be dressed as clones. But who received that message? It rings every alarm for an enemy trick. Maybe I’d buy that Krell would be so itchy for a fight that he’d go through with it without checking… but Kenobi? And if it wasn’t the Jedi who received the message, that means both Rex and Cody were stupid enough not to check or run it by the generals first. _Both_ of them? That’s really bad. Too bad.”

“You think so?” Fox asked in an innocent tone.

“You don’t?” Radar huffed. “Come on Fox… I know you don’t like Cody, but even you have to—”

“I know, I know, I _know_ Cody would never go through with such sketchy orders unless it came from a reliable source.” Fox rolled his eyes. “So what do you think really happened?”

“Well….” Radar folded his arms loosely, still frowning at the datapad. “Either one person fell for the trick and then gave a verifiable order to everyone else, or something else was going on entirely.”

“And that one person would be…?”

“If Rex or Cody were the ones receiving the fake transmission, they would have passed it on to the generals, and Krell or at the very least Kenobi would have checked its veracity before giving the go-ahead. If Kenobi received it, he would have checked. If Krell received it, he might have just passed the order along, and I could see Kenobi or Cody trusting that Krell would know what he was talking about. But it still feels hard to believe. Maybe a few of them did steal armor to convince the officers all the clones were Umbarans, but I still think it would take something more than a random transmission for them to risk everyone like that. Did you do any digging?”

“Did I do any digging….” Fox snorted.

“Right, of course you did.” Radar’s frown turned up into a wry grin, and he held out the datapad for Fox to take back. 

Fox quickly paged over to the classified report that had taken hours to uncover. “It took a while, but here….”

Radar took it eagerly and immediately looked impressed. “What, did you hack directly into Rex and Cody’s confidential personnel files?”

“It’s the obvious place to start, isn’t it? And I didn’t ‘hack’ anything. Cody’s were locked down even to me.” 

“Hmm….” 

Again, talk subsided into the background racket of blaster fire hammering on their eardrums. It just so happened this was one of the safest places besides Fox’s office to talk about anything they didn’t want overheard. 

Radar whistled. “Wow Rex… accusing a Jedi General of treason. And in an official report. Not something I ever thought I’d read about him doing. And he doesn’t even acknowledge it could have been a mistake on Krell’s part. Maybe I had him wrong.”

“Keep going,” Fox said, impatient for Radar to get to the end of Rex’s report. 

“When was this one submitted?” Radar quickly tabbed up to check the date on the report, then on the official one released by High Command that he’d read first. “Hmm….” 

Fox watched, the edge of his mouth twitching upward. 

Radar gestured at the screen. “Rex’s report was submitted before they even left Umbara. And the falsified one was almost a week later. Plenty of time to deliberate on what they might have wanted to keep under wraps.”

“Did you finish reading Rex’s report? There’s kind of an important detail at the end.”

“Oh, right, right… just a second.”

It _was_ strangely exhilarating, panning for those little flecks of truth in the muck of bureaucratic paperwork. As an intellectual exercise, yes, Fox (and Radar too, he knew) could play at this all day, but the actual implications left a knot in his stomach. 

He knew when Radar reached the sentence in question; he could see it in the way Radar’s eyes widened and his lips parted in disbelief. 

“I… can’t think of any reason Rex would frame one of his own men for something like this, if the first part about Krell being a traitor is true.” The eagerness in Radar’s eyes shifted, grew wary. “But if it’s true, why would High Command cover it up so thoroughly? It’s convenient enough as it is that a random line trooper killed Krell… it’s almost too clean. Crazy unstable Jedi gets taken out by crazy unstable clone trooper, everything’s back to normal… and I suppose that trooper’s already long gone.”

“Actually,” Fox said.

“No.” Radar stared at him in disbelief. “You found him? He hasn’t been tossed yet?”

“Surprisingly. He’s being held here on Coruscant until they figure out what to do with him.”

“We have to question him!” Radar jumped—literally, his eagerness bringing him up onto the balls of his feet. 

“Hang on,” Fox laughed. “How do you know we can trust anything he says?”

“Well, what’s his record like?” 

“Nothing in it to suggest he was disloyal up to that point,” Fox said. “Nothing in it at all. It’s blank.”

“Blank? How old is he?”

“Eight.” 

“Okay…” Radar blew out a breath. “So he was deployed when?”

“Months ago.”

“Hmm… and no mention of a single battle on his record, even before Umbara? Nothing even about the Five-Oh-First? That’s definitely weird. He would have gotten it updated at least once since he was deployed. Has to have been scrubbed.”

“So we’ve got nothing to judge his loyalty by.”

“So what? We can’t trust the reports on their own either. What he says or doesn’t say will at least tell us _something_.”

“And why is it any of our business?” Fox asked, testing his own doubts on Radar.

The flash of irritation in Radar’s face disappeared as quickly as it came. He understood. “Come on Fox… it’s our job to sniff out corruption, no matter how high it goes. And a cover-up this big has to mean something. Besides… if you don’t look into it, it’s always gonna keep bugging you, knowing you didn’t even try. You’ve _got_ to know.”

“Yeah.” Fox sighed. “You don’t think I’m only paying attention to this because I hated that Jedi?” 

Radar gave a short laugh. “Oh it’s definitely because you hated him. But also… a traitor’s a traitor.”

“But maybe Krell was framed.” 

“Rex doesn’t leave much room for that in this report. You don’t honestly think he’s lying, do you? To High Command’s face?” Radar side-eyed him skeptically. “You could always ask some of the other guys in his battalion to confirm his story. But I figure no clone in his right mind would think he could get away with making up something like this. It has to be true. It’s too extreme. Unless he’s clever enough to know that and he’s got some other angle. Or it _could_ all be a Skywalker thing.”

“Hmm,” Fox agreed. “We’ll see.”

“If you don’t want to, I can question the line trooper for you.” Radar looked excited. “Cross-examine him, make sure he’s honest.”

“Maybe just be in the room while I do it.” 

“Well then?” Radar pulled his helmet back on. “Let me know when he gets here.”

He seemed to be indicating he was done with this discussion, as if Fox had ended the conversation and dismissed him, but Fox didn’t take offense. There was no point in tossing around what-ifs while a source of further information was accessible. Radar already knew what Fox believed to be most likely, but he also knew Fox would pursue every avenue to uncover the whole story. Not because Fox was bored, but because with traitors, there was always a possibility things went much deeper than one individual.

…

Helmet on the desk, Fox stared silently at the personnel file in front of him. As Radar had said, not even newly deployed troopers had records this empty. Just the kid’s number, age, photo, and a small symbol in the corner Fox had never seen put to use before. High Command had previously shown little restraint in scrapping clones that didn’t toe the line, even when their deviations were justified. Was this simply negligence? Definitely not a change of heart. Maybe their forces were just getting that thin. 

His mind drifted, remembering the incident months ago when he’d been assigned to briefly act as a security escort for that so-called Jedi. When he’d been pinned in an unnecessary show of force to the lift wall, when he’d coaxed himself to settle by remembering that High Command would never let him live if he reacted. But his hands had been itching for his pistols, and now he knew that if he had trusted his instincts, countless men would still be alive.

He tried to handle the memories lightly. There was no need to get worked up just before this meeting. He was calm and alert, anticipating what answers might come.

The door opened. Radar walked in with Lieutenant Driad, a third trooper held between them looking small without armor. The distinctive V-shaped tattoo on his face matched the image from his personnel file, but instead of the intense, focused frown in his holoimage, the trooper’s face was held in an uncomfortably neutral position. Afraid and trying to hide it. Well, that was to be expected. 

“Dogma,” said Fox, without rising. He held out a hand to indicate the chair across from his desk. “Have a seat.” 

The trooper sat down as soon as he was released. “It might be more appropriate for me to go by my number, Commander.”

Steady eye contact. A crisp, rehearsed quality to the words. 

“And why’s that?” Fox leaned back a little in his chair, glancing at Driad to dismiss him. Radar stayed, taking up position behind Dogma in front of the door. 

“I’ve been reconditioned. My old name belongs to someone who doesn’t exist anymore.” Here the trooper’s eyes went down, to the holoimage of himself on Fox’s desk. Fox watched him inhale slowly. 

“You’re the first reconditioned soldier I’ve met,” Fox said with casual interest.

Dogma stared at the file, straight-backed at the edge of his seat. His attention darted questioningly between Fox and the holoimage, but he said nothing.

“It’s hard to believe you’re really a different person.” Fox leaned forward and rested his elbows lightly on the desk. “What exactly does reconditioning entail?” 

“It’s—” Dogma cut himself off, looking inward. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. That’s the point, isn’t it?” 

“They erased your memories?” Fox frowned, feeling a sharp sting of disappointment. It was better than what he expected reconditioning to mean, but it would cut off their only accessible lead. 

“No, I still… remember what I did, I just….” Dogma’s calm cracked a little bit, his gaze slipping aimlessly across the edge of Fox’s desk. “I don’t remember them doing anything to me. They must have done it while I was asleep.” 

“Hmm.” Fox turned off the holoimage; he didn’t want anything else standing in the way of the trooper speaking honestly. “So tell me what you did, then.”

“Yes, sir.” Dogma’s shoulders slumped for a moment; he took a breath to begin, but stopped again. “I’m surprised they haven’t sent you the mission report.”

“You mean the one from your last mission on the front? I’ve read the report.” Fox leaned his chin on one hand and raised his eyebrows slightly in an invitation to continue. “The Five-Hundred-First and the Two-Hundred-Twelfth were deceived by the Umbarans and fired on each other. Why should it mention you?”

Dogma’s face flashed confused disbelief before he could manage to smother it with that practiced neutrality. He took a moment before responding, his mouth set in such a way as if he was considering the taste of something unpleasant he’d just swallowed. “If it doesn’t mention me, then why am I here, sir?”

“You were sent for reconditioning. Why?”

“I….” Dogma paused, clearly deliberating. 

“I will know if you’re lying,” Fox said in a low voice. “Tell me what happened.”

“Can I see the report first, sir?”

“That’s not how this works.”

The empty space between them filled with an uncomfortable silence. Fox waited. The walls of his office were well insulated, which had often been a salve to his sanity whenever too many idiots tried to ruin his day. He could take refuge in the silence, no outside noises able to reach him if he turned off his comm and gave temporary command to one of his officers. But he also knew how oppressively heavy and thick that silence could be. 

He didn’t try to fill it, other than shifting a little in his seat; the creak of the chair would be enough to keep the air open to let Dogma speak, the soft clatter of armor in friction with itself. 

Twenty seconds still felt like a lifetime in a silence like that.

Dogma exhaled quietly. “Sir, the report is lying.” Not _misinformed_. Not _misreported_. “We weren’t deceived by the Umbarans.”

He waited as if expecting some reaction, but Fox said nothing.

“It was Krell. _He_ betrayed the Republic.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Fox saw Radar shift by the door and didn’t need to be able to see under the helmet to know the expression he was probably making.

Dogma bent forward slightly as if the weight of his actions was something physical. “I shot him, sir.” His gaze drifted again to the desk, the artificial strength in his voice faltering.

“The report indicates that he was killed in the airbase by an Umbaran assassin. The other battalion’s attack on the Five-Hundred-First was just a distraction.”

Dogma pressed his lips together, his eyes narrowing slightly at the desk. “That’s not how it happened.”

“You think Captain Rex lied to High Command? To Commander Cody?”

“I know the captain delivered an accurate report. High Command are the ones who are lying,” Dogma stated, a distressed note under the surface of his tone. “But why they’re protecting a traitor like Krell, I don’t know. Maybe they don’t want to admit they didn’t catch him before something like this could happen.” He raised his chin up and looked at Fox, some strength seeming to return to him when Fox didn’t remark upon his criticism of their superiors.

“Did you shoot him by accident? Misfire maybe?” Fox opened his hand, inviting Dogma to take the out.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Dogma said. There wasn’t even a note of apology in his tone.

Interesting.

Fox folded his hands. “What did he do that warranted his execution?”

He gave Dogma a moment to collect his thoughts. As much as the kid was trying to keep a straight face, the effort was entirely in vain. He clearly had no natural ability in keeping his feelings to himself. 

Eventually, he took a breath and started slowly. “He committed treason against the Republic. If it had just been the fact that he didn’t act like the other Jedi, it would have been different—even when he treated us like we were completely disposable, didn’t use our names, not even our captain’s title at first. And if it had just been a reckless plan, that would have been different….” 

Dogma’s voice had drifted low and quiet again, and his head bowed once more, his hands gripping his knees. It was ironic, Fox thought, how treating the men like they were completely disposable would have been justification enough for Fox's finger to slip on the trigger, were he in that position.

“I was trained to obey without question,” Dogma continued, “and Captain Rex agreed with me that our duty was to follow orders even if it meant risking high casualties. We’re soldiers—if we can’t accept the risk of death in the line of duty, what purpose do we serve? But I believed it was all for a purpose… and it _wasn’t_.” His voice dropped to a thick hiss of anger and pain. “I didn’t realize that, even when he sent us against one another. He ordered us out and then set the Two-Hundred-Twelfth on us. Framing us as the enemy in disguise. The Umbarans had nothing to do with it. We were out there shooting at our own men. And he laughed—” 

Dogma caught himself there, tried and failed to regain his composure. 

“...He laughed at us. And at me, especially… for being stupid enough to believe him! And I-I acknowledge that I acted without proper authority when I shot him.” That last came out in a rush, a hasty tacked-on qualifier. “It was well above my rank. I’m not supposed to be an executioner. I was….” Dogma sucked in a breath to steady himself. “I was acting out of emotion. He had me convinced that following him was the right thing to do, but in the process I—it….” Dogma trailed off, rocking back a little in his seat, clearly fighting the urge to fold inward.

Fox knew even before this little interrogation that the classified report still wasn’t the whole story, but it had still been enough to give him a headache. It was worse hearing it firsthand; he could see the sickening deaths of those men in the darkness around Dogma’s eyes. He wondered, but didn’t ask, how many brothers Dogma thought he had unknowingly killed. 

“He never wanted to win the battle. He just wanted to get as many of us killed as possible. Captain Rex and some others managed to arrest him and put him in a holding cell, but not before he… slaughtered… so many of our men… indiscriminately. Personally.” 

“What do you think his motive was?” Fox attempted to sound soothing, conversational; it wasn’t his forte. But this was something even Rex’s report omitted, or maybe it had been redacted even there.

“I don’t know… even after he explained it, I don’t really understand. He said he wasn’t a Jedi anymore. I definitely believe that—he wasn’t like any other Jedi I’ve met.” Dogma blew out a harsh breath and looked back up. “He said he renounced all that and was working for the Sith, and that he’d foreseen that we’re on the losing side, and that all of us would die before the end of the war. He was working to destroy the Republic, sir. He said so himself.”

Radar shook his head and made a silent _of course_ gesture behind Dogma. Of course. This was what it always came back to, again and again, across the millennia. They were all just pawns in a neverending Jedi/Sith turf war. Separatists, the Republic… what a coincidence that the Jedi Council and Count Dooku each happened to play such powerful parts. The senators were all blind idiots to think their wartime motions were anything more than a way to keep the various governments placated while somewhere, a very powerful Jedi or Sith was making everyone dance. Maybe both. Either that or the so-called Force had a sadistic way of entertaining itself. But history and rationale favored the former.

Well, if that was the crux of the war, then it was time for Fox to stop playing cops and robbers and start pulling on the threads of a dark web even he preferred to avoid. He had a responsibility to pursue justice, to prevent as many people as possible from becoming victims of whatever monster lurked at the center. But he knew that if he did, the odds of him coming out the other side of this war were slim to none. Still….

“Who else was present during this confession?”

As expected, Dogma hesitated. Fox could think of a few different reasons the kid might be reluctant to dispense the names of others so closely involved with the incident.

“There weren’t many…” he said carefully. “Captain Rex was there. And an ARC trooper, Fives… ARC Five-Five-Five-Five…. I know there were one or two others, but I can’t remember who.”

Unlikely, but as long as Fox knew at least a couple people he could question, the rest were unimportant for now. He made a note on the datapad about the ARC trooper, though he wasn’t about to forget any of this.

“What is your opinion of the Jedi Order, CT Three-Seven-Five-Three-Six-One?” he asked, trying to sound merely curious.

“What?” Dogma shook himself visibly, his expression almost disoriented. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I just said. What are your feelings about them as a group? And as leaders in the army.”

“I have… no objection to the Jedi Order or our generals,” said Dogma. He cleared his throat and his voice came out a bit more firmly. “In my experience they are generally acting with the best interests of the Republic at heart. But Krell was not a Jedi. And he was not loyal to the Republic. He was a traitor and murderer.”

“Did he give any indication he was more than a lone actor? That there may be more Jedi who have similarly… ‘foreseen that we’re on the losing side’?”

“I think he was a rare case, sir. Or at least I hope so. But I know better than to say it’s impossible.” Dogma’s bearing was getting more confident again, more steely. “And if it does happen again, I hope this incident will be a warning to enough of my brothers that they’ll be able to stop such a traitor before he can get very far.”

“The official report states that he was innocent.”

“Well, brothers talk,” said Dogma. “…I hope,” he added after a second.

“If you found yourself in the same situation in the future, confronted with a traitor among your superiors, would you shoot again?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

It came out immediately. No hesitation at all this time.

“Why? Why go through all of this again when you could leave it to an officer?” 

“Because it’s the right thing to do. Because when the odds are stacked against you, sometimes someone has to take the fall, and better someone unimportant like me than a captain. I think….” A look of realization lit Dogma’s face. “It’s more important to consider the consequences for the whole army, than to worry about whether or not I’m considered a good soldier. No one soldier wins a war. But one soldier can sometimes be the reason more of their team survived. One soldier can sometimes be the reason a traitor is stopped. If I have the opportunity to be that soldier, I have to take it, even if there’s no glory involved. Even if it means being called a traitor myself! I don’t want to break regulation… I don’t want to have to make those kinds of decisions! But avoiding truth and responsibility is a choice too, and it’s not one I can live with anymore.”

It was an impressive speech. Some troopers took years to find this conviction. Some started with it and lost it along the way. But there was a part of this picture that was still missing. That it was missing was almost a sign of something more in itself.

“Where was Captain Rex when you shot the general? You said he was there when Krell confessed.” Rex’s report had also indicated that Rex was present at the execution.

“He was… he was there.” 

“Whose idea was it to arrest the general?” Fox asked. 

“It was Captain Rex. After we had found out we had been shooting at brothers. I’m sure he didn’t intend for the arrest to result in execution. He just wanted the general to explain his actions and contain him.”

“Did you take part in capturing him?” 

“Yes.” It came out halting. In fact, he had already implied he hadn’t. “We brought him up to the holding cell.”

“You’re certain Rex had no intention to kill him, even after everything he had done?”

Dogma looked him in the eye. “As I said… Captain Rex only led the men in arresting the general. I was the one who killed him.”

“That’s interesting,” Fox said, watching Dogma’s eyebrows furrow slightly. “You say you shot Krell because he had intentionally killed his troops. Vigilante justice, some would call it. Maybe you thought if he had been brought to trial, he would have been able to weasel out of it somehow, and you would probably be right.”

“That’s accurate, sir,” Dogma said cautiously, clearly waiting for Fox’s angle.

“Well, it might surprise you to know that Rex reported you confessed a different motivation.”

“Commander... you said the report didn’t say anything about me or what I did; that Krell was killed by Umbarans.” Now the furrow in his brow was joined by a narrowing of the eyes.

“You already know the official report was fabricated despite Rex reporting the true events. Access to classified materials is a perk of the job. And according to his classified report, you said you killed Krell because he had made known his intentions to join the Umbarans, and they were getting close. Republic reinforcements may not have arrived in time to properly apprehend him. In order to keep military secrets safe, you decided the only option was to eliminate him before he could put anyone else at risk.”

“I did believe that!” Dogma said fervently. Fox almost felt guilty watching how hard the kid was trying to hide the realization that such an obvious and rational explanation would have been a much better defense. If only he had thought of it.

“I wonder how Captain Rex came to such a conclusion, if in reality you were simply ‘acting out of emotion’.” 

“The captain had nothing to do with my decision,” Dogma said firmly, and he raised his eyes in a challenging look that held a surprising level of intensity. “I was the one who killed him, and I’m not going to let anyone else take the blame for it. Sir.”

This sudden defiance when Rex was the one being examined intrigued Fox; underneath that compliant exterior was an iron will that simply needed a cause. 

He decided now wasn't the time to test it. He had learned enough for the moment anyway, and figured that on the matter of Krell’s motivations, Dogma probably had little left to add.

Fox stood and gestured for Dogma to follow. “I think we’re done here. I appreciate your honesty,” Fox said, holding out a hand once Dogma had risen from the chair.

The kid glanced quickly between Fox’s face and his waiting hand, a second’s hesitation before taking it. Fox shook once, firmly, and released it, holding his gaze until he was certain Dogma got the message: _I know you’re lying_.

Outside his office, Lieutenant Driad was waiting.

“Lieutenant,” Fox said pleasantly, “please return this trooper to his supervising official.”

“Yes sir.”

“Dogma, I expect you should hear some news in the near future about what the Grand Army has planned for someone of your marvelous talents. Good luck.”

Dogma looked unnerved by that, and a bit offended, but said nothing. He didn’t hesitate a moment to fall in behind Driad as soon as he was motioned to follow.

Once the door to his office closed, Radar said, “Well that was fun.” He laid his helmet and rifle down next to the datapad, then sat in Fox’s chair, all but kicking his feet up onto the desk. 

“I want him in the guard,” Fox said.

“I knew you were going to say that.”

“Good. That means I’m right.”

Radar smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Maybe it just means you’re soft for outcast strays. Wouldn’t be the first time.” 

Fox glanced at his face and grimaced. “You think that’s all it is?”

“Nah. I can see why you want him,” Radar said, his smirk drifting into a smile. “He’s nothing if not authentic, even when he’s lying. I don’t think he’s the type of person who would be dishonest if not for circumstances or orders pressing him into it. He’s certainly not doing it to save his own skin. Poor kid…. Eight is just too young. Can you imagine being put in that situation when you were eight?”

“Definitely would have died,” Fox muttered. “If not from enemy fire, then within the first five minutes of the battle from calling Krell an incompetent strategist with less supposed Jedi foresight than huttslime.”

Radar snickered quietly, though not for long, the weight of that truth mixing with everything Dogma had told them. 

“Eh,” he said after a moment, sighing heavily. “I guess Rex isn’t such an honest guy after all.”

“So you agree with that then?”

“With what? That Rex played some additional part? Clearly.” Radar blew out a breath and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. “You think he was the one who shot Krell then? Kid was obviously covering for him.”

“That or ordered the kid to shoot, maybe. It doesn’t make much of a difference either way.” 

And yet, the idea bothered him. Most of his observations of Rex had been in the shadow of Cody’s obnoxious preening, but the times he and Rex had crossed paths outside of that, Rex had seemed surprisingly alright, and Fox knew his men to be incredibly loyal to him. That kind of loyalty to an officer wasn’t just a given. 

“I know I don’t know him well,” Fox said, “but Rex putting all the blame on a rookie’s shoulders if he’s not guilty seems… uncharacteristic. Dogma was right about it making sense to shift the blame from a tactical standpoint, particularly if Rex expected he would be decommissioned despite how eliminating the general was clearly the appropriate response, but… this smells more like Skywalker’s style if I had to guess.”

“Ah yes, Skywalker.” Radar shook his head, then leaned back in the chair. He almost made it look comfortable. “There’s something bigger going on here.”

“I’m interested in talking to the ARC trooper,” Fox said, pacing slightly. “They’re usually cut from a different cloth, so I expect him to have a different perspective of the events and remember Krell’s confession with more precision. I doubt I’d get anything new from Rex.”

“You think there will be more after Krell? More Jedi joining the other side?” Radar almost sounded eager, but Fox knew it was just the thrill of intrigue. “Wouldn’t be the first time some dissatisfied subsection of the order splintered off. Maybe Skywalker’s even one of them, he’s a loose cannon already. There could be a whole group of them just waiting to form a third side to the war, throw their own borcatu into the fight. Another Hundred Year Darkness. I’m telling you, history is repeating itself—it’s like poetry!”

“Ugh, not this again.”

“Hey, there’s historical prece—”

“Don’t say historical precedent—”

“Well there is!” Radar protested. “Especially when it comes to the Sith and Jedi, it’s just spinning on repeat, over and over!”

“I’m not disagreeing with you that there are probably some bigger players behind all of this than we’ve seen.” Fox sat back against the edge of the desk and folded his arms. “Dooku’s just a power-hungry pawn like Krell, hoping to catch the crumbs from the table of someone greater. I know the type. And if Master Yoda is really the best the Jedi have to offer, I’m not impressed.”

“Well, he _is_ really old. Anyway, as intellectually fascinated as I am by this territorial spat, I think this is one shadowy mob boss we should leave uninvestigated.”

“Funny, I was thinking the opposite.”

“Fox, you can’t be serious.” Radar sat up, his playful tone cracking with distress. “I know you want to outsmart every demon that crosses your path, but be realistic. The Sith and Jedi haven’t been fighting for thousands of years just to be foiled by some clone soldier.” 

“Weren’t you _just_ saying it was our job to sniff out corruption no matter how high?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean _this_.”

Fox sighed, tapping his fingers on his armplate. “Eh, I probably won’t get far anyway. I just can’t ignore it when patterns emerge, even if I want to.”

Radar was still frowning, looking at him as if he was about to run off and beat down the door of some ancient Sith Temple himself, demanding all creatures involved reach for the sky. To Radar’s credit, Fox had done some pretty stupid things in the past. It didn’t make Fox feel guilty exactly, but it did make him feel something. It was time to change the subject.

He picked up the datapad and navigated away from his single notation of the ARC trooper’s number. “I’m going to put in that request for the kid’s transfer. After being reconditioned, I expect they’ll have no objection sticking him directly under my watchful eye.”

“You sure we can trust him? Maybe he was actually aiming for his captain’s back and missed.” Great, now Radar was in _irrationally concerned for Fox’s life_ mode.

“Right. Anyway, what I’m actually interested in is that he’s someone who knows firsthand how an ally can become an enemy in the blink of an eye.” Fox paused after writing the first sentence of the transfer request. “And whether or not he fired the shot, and whether it was premeditated or not, if it was really his decision to take the blame, I can trust him to put the group’s needs first. What it comes down to, though, is that I need people capable of independent thought, not blind loyalty.” 

“You don’t think his loyalties still lie with the Five-Oh-First? You said yourself that Rex attracts that, and he seemed intent on protecting him from blame.” 

“We won’t know for sure until he settles. But he’s got valuable qualities for a guardsman, and I’d rather give him a second chance than see someone with his experience be discarded. Think you’ll be able to handle him if I put him in your company?”

“I’m able to handle _you_. He’s just a tooka kitten with his claws out in comparison.” His smile at Fox’s eye roll was almost painfully earnest. “I just hope you’re right about him and he doesn’t end up being more trouble than he’s worth.”

Radar rose at the end and grabbed his things. “Let’s let it all settle and talk about it again later. My shift is about to start.”

“Alright, then,” Fox said, raising an eyebrow.

“Let me know when to expect him. I’ll be sure to roll out the welcome mat.”

“Could be a while. You know how bureaucracy is.” Fox said.

“Don’t I ever.”

Radar gave a friendly salute on the way out, and Fox picked up the datapad to follow, ready to look at anything other than the four walls of his office as his mind contemplated the shadows of an unknown enemy.


End file.
